NewsWrap
for the week ending March 22, 2003
(As broadcast on This Way Out program #782, distributed 3-24-03)
[Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Fenceberry, Graham Underhill, Rex
Wockner and Greg Gordon]
Anchored by Cindy Friedman and Ralph Radebaugh
As Britain joined the U.S. in attacking Iraq this week, the U.K.'s Ministry
of Defense announced that for the first time it will be extending spousal
survivor benefits to the partners of its unmarried servicemembers who may die
there -- including gay and lesbian partners. British law currently restricts
military pensions to legally married spouses, something several Members of
Parliament have already been working to amend. But the Ministry has the
authority to change the benefits regulations without legislation, and the
heterosexual domestic partner of one servicemember who died in action had
already won a settlement in her high-profile campaign for a military pension.
The new eligibility of partners is not identical to that of legally married
spouses, according to the Ministry's written statement to the Parliament.
While spouses enjoy their benefits automatically, for partners the Ministry
will make what it called "a broad assessment of the substance of the
relationship" in each case. The assessment will consider such factors as
duration, the partner being named in the servicemember's will, financial
interdependence, shared commitments such as joint mortgages, and children,
although not all of these are necessary to qualify. Those who are deemed to
have had a "substantial" relationship with a servicemember who died in a
"conflict" will receive an initial lump sum followed by regular payments, but
are apt to be in amounts about 10% less than those received by legal spouses.
Partner eligibility begins with the war on Iraq and is not retroactive.
Meanwhile, all that's available to U.S. gay and lesbian servicemembers in
Iraq is the option to name a partner as what's called a "person of interest"
to be notified if they die. Even that's risky, as the so-called "Don't Ask,
Don't Tell" policy remains in effect, with so-called "gay discharges" and
military cases of homophobic harassment both having reached record highs in
2001, the latest year for which figures are available. The attack on Iraq
marks the first time the U.S. military specifically excluded proceedings on
"gay discharges" from its "stop-loss" orders, which halted other
administrative actions so as to keep troops available for action.
Numerous gay and lesbian individuals and organizations have been prominent
among those protesting the war in Western nations.
In fact, one U.S. Internet poll suggested that lesbigays and transgenders may
be more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to oppose it.
Last week Britain's best-known gay rights activist Peter Tatchell was
arrested after jumping in front of Prime Minister Tony Blair's car to protest
Western military intervention against Iraq. Tatchell, who was quickly bailed
out, believes Saddam Hussein should be deposed by means of support for
dissident Iraqi Kurds.
In one protest this week, the Spanish gay rights group Colegas publicly
called on the Pope to excommunicate Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar
and his entire ruling Partido Popular from the Roman Catholic Church. The
Pope has repeatedly called for peace, while the Spanish Government has been a
leader in supporting U.S. military action against Iraq. However, the Church
and Partido Popular agree in their opposition to legal recognition of gay and
lesbian couples, with the PP having recently blocked registered partnership
bills introduced by all of Spain's other parliamentary parties.
And Mexico City's first ever Lesbian March this week turned into an
anti-war demonstration. Lesbian-feminist organizers had previously announced
it would "proclaim [their] need for autonomous spaces that do not compromise
our ethics in the construction of a society that is critical of heterosexism,
neoliberalism and other fundamentalisms". But as some 500 participants
marched down the city's main streets, they joined their voices with dozens of
anti-war protesters holding vigil outside the U.S. Embassy.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit credited for the South African National Defense
Force's recent extension of spousal benefits to servicemembers' same-gender
partners was reaffirmed by the nation's highest court this week. South
Africa's Constitutional Court last year determined that a law restricting
judges' survivor benefits to legally married spouses violated the
constitutional guarantee of equality for gays and lesbians. The decision was
seen as a landmark for partner rights, especially for civil servants, and led
to the change in military policy. But by the time that judgment was handed
down, the law in question had been replaced by another which also recognized
only marital partners. So openly lesbian High Court Judge Kathy Satchwell
went back to court seeking benefits for her partner, and this week the
Constitutional Court again declared that permanent life partners must have
equal treatment.
Satchwell's attorney Raymond Tucker interprets the ruling as referring to
relationships of some length or some kind of mutual support agreement, noting
that, "With marriage there is an automatic mutual support assumption that
does not occur in gay relationships because they might have chosen to exclude
that obligation."
Despite a number of court rulings and urging from judges, South Africa's
legislature has yet to act on formalizing legal recognition of same-gender
couples.
But a number of U.S. state legislatures continue to take up bills affecting
gays and lesbians.
New Mexico's legislature took final action this week on two bills, sending
them on to Governor Bill Richardson, who has promised to sign them into law.
One will prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender
identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, and credit. This
week the state Senate, which had previously passed its own version of the
measure by a narrow margin, passed the House version by a vote of 22-to-20.
The other bill would increase sentences for bias-motivated crimes, including
those against lesbigays and transgenders. This week the Senate version won
approval from 60% of the state House, which had previously passed its own
version.
Also, late last week the Democrat-controlled New Mexico House revived a bill
to require insurers to make coverage available for domestic partners in group
health insurance plans to those employers who want to provide it. The bill,
which the Governor supports, had previously failed in a tie vote on a day of
poor attendance, now passed the House 33-to-30.
The Washington state House -- also controlled by Democrats -- this week
gave almost 60% approval to a bill to prohibit sexual orientation
discrimination in employment, housing and financial transactions. Although
the Washington House has passed similar bills twice before, it will once
again face an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled state Senate.
In Minnesota -- which was among the first of the 13 U.S. states to enact a
law protecting gay and lesbian civil rights -- a controversial move to repeal
those protections may be dead for the session, as its Senate sponsor withdrew
it this week. Republican leaders in the state House have already said they
won't give a hearing to its companion bill there.
Maryland's state House this week passed by a landslide 2-to-1 margin a bill
to add homophobic attacks to the state's hate crimes law. Its sponsor,
openly gay Delegate Richard Madaleno, is confident that the Maryland Senate
will follow suit.
A Member of the Finnish Parliament issued an open letter of apology this
week after lesbian-baiting his nation's President. Former professional boxer
Tony Halme won the second-largest number of votes of any candidate in this
week's elections, even though his right-wing populist party, the True Finns,
lost 15 of its 18 seats. When an interviewer on public radio asked him if he
might form his own parliamentary group, Halme said, "We have a lesbian as
president and me as parliamentarian -- everything seems possible." While
it's true that President Tarja Halonen once chaired Finland's national gay
and lesbian rights group SETA, it's not true that she's a lesbian, and she's
now married to her former domestic partner, a male. In addition to Halme's
published apology, the radio broadcaster is investigating its airing of his
remarks, and has attributed it to a failure in internal routines.
And finally... the annual protest of the exclusion of gay and lesbian
groups from New York City's massive St. Patrick's Day parade has become
almost as much of a tradition as the venerable parade itself. Parade
organizers the Ancient Order of Hibernians have the law on their side, thanks
to a past unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding the exclusion of gays
and lesbians from Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade. In its heyday, the New
York protest resulted in more than 200 arrests, but this year's demonstration
by the group Irish Queers involved only a dozen participants. Despite an unu
sual prop and four arrests, it went all but unreported by media, at a time of
widespread U.S. police crackdowns on traffic-blocking actions towards
security from terrorism. At a major intersection on the parade route, the
Irish Queers erected a 16-foot-tall tripod and slung one of their members
from its peak. Police knocked over the tripod, dumping its occupant, and
arrested him and three other demonstrators. They were released from custody
more than 30 hours later, with the group charging violence and other
misconduct by police.
Back on the Auld Sod in Belfast, the tenth annual protest of the New York
City exclusion by the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association may have
actually had more journalistic attention, despite being utterly peaceful and
prop-free.
That group picketed outside an office of New York parade sponsor Aer Lingus,
where NIGRA president PA MagLochlainn told reporters, "Gay women and men can
take part in St. Patrick's Day Parades in Dublin, Cork and Belfast -- but
they cannot in New York. The parade in New York has been multi-ethnic for
years, but the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America bans gay people from
the parade. This bigoted ban is long since out of date."